A Bio-Inspired Climbing Robot for Cleaning and Painting Internal Surfaces of the Arches in the Sydney Harbour Bridge
UTS and the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) of NSW have been collaborating on research and development of biologically inspired climbing robots for steel bridge inspection and condition assessment since 2010.
This project is Stage 3 of this research, with the objective of developing one practically deployable autonomous climbing robot for the cleaning and painting inside the arch structures of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
To achieve this objective, the robot needs to be able to:
- Navigate inside the box girders of the arch structures in the Sydney Harbour Bridge;
- Locate the areas of interest identified by the inspection robot developed in Stage 2;
- Clean the areas of interest with suitable technology (e.g. grit-blasting, dustless-blasting, laser blasting, etc.) (Cleaning technology to be confirmed by RMS);
- Collect the majority of the waste generated during the cleaning operation;
- Paint the cleaned areas;
- Operate safely, robustly and reliably;
- Simple to set up and relocate on the Sydney Harbour Bridge;
- Operated by trained RMS personnel with limited ongoing support from UTS staff.
RMS personnel will be intimately involved in this research and development project to contribute from an end-user operational perspective.
For further information regarding Stage 2 of this research, please see here.
Phase 2 Climbing Robot Outcome: node
Chief Investigators
- Professor Dikai Liu
- Dr Ravindra Ranasinghe
- Professor Gamini Dissanayake
- Professor Kenneth Waldron
- Dr Gavin Paul
Partner Investigators
- Palitha Manamperi
- Phillip Brooks
- Waruna Kaluarachichi
- Peter Mann
- Laurent Matkovic
Other Members
Funding
- Roads and Maritime Services (NSW)
Year
- 2015 – 2018